


You Deserve To Know

by konan_konan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dimension Travel, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Growing Old, Hugs, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Memory Loss, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Pregnancy, Slice of Life, Spoilers for Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Tea, and being like "has anybody told him??", basically this fic is me looking at the metacrisis doctor after timeless children, heterosexual bullshit, hmm what else do i need to tag??, it is FULL OF SPOILERS, like i guess, literally just don't read this if you haven't seen that episode, literally this is so heterosexual im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/konan_konan/pseuds/konan_konan
Summary: Rose sets her teacup down and stares at her Doctor. She’s rarely seen his face so flat before, a mask of concrete over a well of emotions he knows he cannot give in to. She watches it begin to crack, and he says “Explain,” again.This new Doctor takes a shuddering breath. “There was an explorer of the stars, from the Shobogan race..."
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor & Thirteenth Doctor, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor & Thirteenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Yasmin Khan & Rose Tyler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	You Deserve To Know

**Author's Note:**

> for once i wanted to write something that isn't super whumpy! but its still a bit ouchy sorry

It's been years, but Rose knows that sound. She knows that sound anywhere, any time, no matter how far away it is, no matter how muddled. That sound has saved her life over and over.

Thing is, she never expected to hear it again.

The TARDIS is parked in her backyard, and it's just a bit different. She wonders what he'll look like now. Her Doctor, dressed up in one of his suits even though it's a Saturday, raises an eyebrow at her.

"Well, isn't this something?" he says. "He shouldn't be here. Not unless something big is about to happen."

"In which case, you'd better call mum," she says, and he gasps, affronted.

"She's  _ your  _ mum-"

"Yours too, 'Doctor Tyler-'"

The TARDIS doors swing open, and a young woman in a large coat steps out, grinning at them.

"Hallo," she says jovially, and Rose smiles at her.

"Hi, I'm Rose," she extends her arm for a handshake, and the girl blinks at her. "This is my husband, the Doctor. Er, I'll explain that bit later…"

"You could let me explain this time," he suggests, to a soft punch in the arm and a smarmy little grin on his face.

"Where's yours? Taking his time getting dressed?"

"Oi," the girl and the Doctor say at the same time, and Rose snickers, putting up her hands in surrender.

"Sorry, sorry. Well, where is he?"

The door swings open again and another girl walks out, bundled in a jacket.

"This isn't the tundra," she says accusingly. "This is just normal London."

"Sorry, Yaz, made a pit stop… I would have mentioned something, but the opportunity was very brief."

Yaz takes her jacket off, glancing between Rose and the Doctor.

"Blimey, he travels with two?" The Doctor whispers to Rose, and she slaps her hand over her mouth. "He's getting cheeky, don't you think?"

"Well who's this?"

"This is Rose Tyler, and her husband, who just so happens to be a sort of copy of me."

"Not a great copy," Yaz snorts.

Rose stares at this woman. "He's a copy of  _ you, _ you said? Well, that means-"

"Yes, I'm the Doctor," she smiles. "Shall we go inside?"

* * *

“So,” she claps her hands together, leaning back in her chair. The Doctor - Rose’s Doctor - sips some tea, staring her down. “You must be a bit shocked to see me like this.”

“Not really,” the other Doctor says. “It was always going to happen eventually.”

“Still can’t believe you had sideburns,” Yaz chuckles. “I mean, you pulled them off, but, god.”

“Oi, I’m right here,” he crosses his arms across his chest.

“And you were going grey?”

“Not originally, he’s just aging.”

“But when you were in prison, you didn’t age at all-”

“I’m human,” the Doctor cuts in. “It’s a long story. And I’m not sure we have time for it.”

Rose straightens in her chair, watching the new Doctor and her new companion sip at their tea awkwardly. The Doctor keeps opening her mouth as if to speak, then closing it with a glance at her human clone.

“I just, I found something out recently,” she finally says, when her tea is all but depleted. “I - We, we aren’t who we thought we were.”

Rose’s Doctor leans forward. “Explain.”

“The Master, he found something. The true history of Gallifrey, and the Shobogans, and me,” she glances at Yaz, who nods at her, squeezing her arm. “I’m not from Gallifrey at all.”

“Course you are,” he says. “You’ve got two hearts, and you can regenerate, not to mention you were born and grew up there.”

“Grew up there, yes. Born there,  _ no. _ I’m… The whole story about the Time Lords is a lie. They didn’t gain the ability to regenerate from prolonged exposure to the time vortex, they got it from me. From you. From the Doctor.”

Rose sets her teacup down and stares at her Doctor. She’s rarely seen his face so flat before, a mask of concrete over a well of emotions he knows he cannot give in to. She watches it begin to crack, and he says “Explain,” again.

This new Doctor takes a shuddering breath. “There was an explorer of the stars, from the Shobogan race. Her name was Tecteun, and she found a child under a monolith marking a boundary between universes. She raised the child as her own, and she found that the child had a unique power to regenerate after death.”

“The first Time Lord?”

“Yes and no. Tecteun experimented on the child and used their genetic sequence to create the regenerative abilities now attributed to the Time Lords. And the child was me - was us.”

Rose shakes her head, “But the Doctor’s told me about his childhood before, and he never mentioned that. He would have, wouldn’t he?”

“He didn’t know,” Yaz says softly. “They wiped her memory, and she doesn’t even know how much of it. This isn’t her first life, Rose.”

“Why tell me?” the Doctor says. “I’m  _ human.  _ I can’t regenerate, or travel the stars, not in the lifespan I’ve got now. Why tell me?”

The other Doctor smiles, though Rose sees pain in her eyes. She knows in that moment that this woman is the Doctor, because she’s seen that pain in his eyes before. Her Doctor wakes up from his nightmares with that look in his eyes, and a false smile that tells her to go back to sleep, everything is fine, it was just a bad dream.

“You deserve to know,” she says. “It’s your past too.”

And then she’s getting up, walking behind Yaz and around the table to give him a hug. He stiffens, then relaxes into it, leaning his head on her shoulder.

“I’ll never be able to remember it,” he mutters, a single tear slipping down his cheek. “Even if you recover your memories, my brain wouldn’t be able to handle even another century’s worth of data. I’ll never be able to know who I was.”

“But you know who you are,” Rose reminds him, putting a gentle hand on his arm and another on her stomach. “You’re the Doctor. You’re the savior of the universe, several times over, and…”

The new Doctor pulls away from the hug and stares at Rose, eyes widening with realization. “Sorry, this was a bad time, wasn’t it.”

“Not at all,” Rose says, smiling as tears begin to fall down her face. “After all, you deserve to know… that the Doctor here is the father of my child.”

“Oh my  _ god, _ ” Yaz mutters, hand flying to her face. “That’s, that…. Congratulations, Doctor.”

“Thank you,” the two respond in unison, laughing through a barrage of tears. 

“Oi, I’m doing most of the work here,” Rose laughs, and gets up to pour some more tea.

This new Doctor isn’t her Doctor’s future, but a glimpse at what he could have been. He deserves to know her, she thinks. He deserves to be understood again.

**Author's Note:**

> this streak of DW fic is completely inspired by [summerartist's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerartist/pseuds/summerartist) amazing collection of Doctor Who fic and art. I'm still working my way through it all, but if you enjoyed this I would recommend checking their stuff out!


End file.
